Dynamic Duos and Trios and Quartets

If I could sit and observe the dynamics between Other People all day long, all week long, I would. I would do it. It's the craziest, most interesting thing to me -- our social animal-ness. We are livestock dressed in pants. Dogs in dresses. Horses in halter tops. Monkeys flying kites and driving cars.

Lots of times I forget I'm just a bird in a tree crapping on cars, and then I take myself too seriously. I always feel a little embarrassed once I remember.

But I love to watch Other People forget they are elephants and cats. I love to watch them buy things and conspire and preen in mirrors. I love to see them unwittingly validate one another and project onto each other and quietly, subtly sabotage the other preening parrots in the cage over something as lame as the biggest seed or the highest perch.

It's not that I love sabotage and reckless projections and conspiracies; I just find the human-animal process kind of fascinating. Don't even get me started on what a thrill I get from mapping out co-dependent relationships. That's so juicy I could faint.

When I was a school psych, my favorite thing about all the meetings I had to go to was observing the relationships between students and parents. I was really just there to talk about reading scores and behavioral plans, but those meetings were very clarifying. I thought I would miss that when I left.

But it turns out I'm not missing a thing. People are everywhere, having goofy relationships all the time, in all contexts. And I love them for it (mostly).